


Flags Over Coffins

by hishn_greywalker



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Death References, Gen, References To Terrorism, generation-kill: 1st fest, off screen deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 20:30:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hishn_greywalker/pseuds/hishn_greywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ladder Company 15 is… well, it's something. They're like family, like the Marines were. And they're still grieving, like the Marines always are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flags Over Coffins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [accol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/accol/gifts).



> Originally posted here in response to accol's prompt: 'FDNY Ladder Company 1'.  
> I know the prompt was for Ladder Co 1, but this worked out better with Ladder Co 15, for 'all things being accurate as I can's sake, as far as 9/11 went. Still managed to make it involve a first, just not the Ladder 1. **TRIGGER WARNINGS:** off screen deaths. mentions of a lot of deaths.

When Walt gets out of the Marines, he doesn't want to go to school. He doesn't want to go home, either, even though his Mama is always telling him to settle close like his sisters and his cousins and his half brother. But Walt has had enough of living with everyone knowing every damn thing about his life, so he doesn't go home.

Ray has been out for ten years. He'd gone to school in California, then headed back east. Walt knows he and Nate talk a lot, with Nate down in DC and Ray working in radio in NYC. He knows Brad is at Quantico, and that the three of them meet up on a regular basis. When Ray offers Walt a place to crash until he figures out what he wants to do, it all seems too perfect.

Walt still doesn't know what he's gonna do, but he knows it will work out. And somehow, he ends up taking a civilian first responder course, which he's more than qualified for, since he's not a _fucking civilian_ , which leads to him talking to the guy who's running it, which leads to him, somehow, in school to be a fireman. He gets the abbreviated course, one for guys who just got out of the service, and it's not too long before he'd being designated to Ladder Company 15.

Ladder Company 15 is… well, it's something. They're like family, like the Marines were. And they're still grieving, like the Marines always are. It's been over a decade since 9/11, and that day changed everything for these men, just like it did for Walt. They're lives were changed more immediately—they lost 8 men that day, in the collapse. But Walt's seen 10 people he knew well killed in combat in those same years, and he's known a hell of a lot more injured. And those he only knew in passing, those numbers…

He doesn't think about those numbers.

Walt can respect the dead, and respect giving your life for America. When he tells the men who work at Ladder 15 he's a Marine who put in fifteen years, they respect him, for the most part. He's the first person who wasn't here, in this city, on 9/11, to join them, but they seem to understand that he gets it.

There's one guy, though, one guy who doesn't get it. One guys who thinks, because Walt's not a New Yorker, because Walt wasn't there, Walt doesn't understand, that he can't understand.

He lets the guy go on like that for a while, but eventually, he can't deal with it. It's a gorgeous fall day when he finally confronts the guy, turning around and facing the guy bad mouthing him to his back.

From one second to the next, Walt goes from laid back guy to stone-cold Marine killer. "I might not have been here for that," Walt tells him, a low growl he picked up from a Gunny along the way, "but I have watched too many friends die in combat because of it, and I've been airlifted to a hospital after a green-on-blue attack because of it. I think you're the one who doesn't get it. The war didn't end that day, _it started_."

The guy looks like he doesn't know what to say in response to Walt. But Walt doesn't want a response, Walt just wants this asshole to stop making it sound like Walt has never lost a brother, has never had to sit through a funeral that involved a flag draped coffin.

Walt doesn't tell them he's never seen a coffin without a flag on it.


End file.
